Good Vibrations

When it comes to music, what's old can be new again. Paul
McCartney, Jimmy Buffett and John Denver went multi-platinum this
year.1 Some veteran recording artists have
even managed to ride the boom in online music sales: the two
best-selling albums online in 2000 were by Santana and The
Beatles,2 bands that predated the Internet.
But these oldies-but-goodies may not be able to count on their
young fans much longer. The 10- to 24-year-old crowd, traditionally
a group of avid music buyers, isn't spending its allowance so
freely anymore: This age group represented a 34 percent share of
all music sales in 2000, down from 44 percent 10 years
ago.3 One reason for the drop may be that
these music lovers are finding cheaper ways to get their tunes
— such as downloading them for free using music file-swapping
services similar to Napster. In fact, 45 percent of college
students frequently listen to MP3s, music files downloadable from
the Internet.4 And sales of recordable CDs,
the kind you use to store those MP3 files, are expected to grow 44
percent this year, to $1.15 billion, from $800 million last
year.5 Times they are a changin'.